Tag: Time Travel

Review: Secrets of the Chocolate House (Found Things #2) by Paula Brackston

~ The Lit Bitch ~ 2 Comments

Paula Brackston is a favorite author of mine. I’ve read almost all of her books and with each read, I feel like I walked away satisfied and looking forward to the next book.

She has a deft hand with magical realism and all things ‘witchy’. She is probably most known for her ‘witch’ books of which I have read almost all of them (The Silver Witch, The Midnight Witch etc) as well as a host of other works by her.

After reading the first book in this particular series, I was eager to see what direction this book took! After reading this one, I do think that readers who haven’t read the first book, The Little Shop of Found Things, should definitely read that one first before attempting this one. Continue reading “Review: Secrets of the Chocolate House (Found Things #2) by Paula Brackston” →

Review: The Little Shop of Found Things (The Little Shop of Found Things #1) by Paula Brackston

~ The Lit Bitch ~ 1 Comment

Paula Brackston has been a favorite writer of mine for a while now. I have read almost all of her ‘witch’ novels and I love them! She has such a nice voice in her stories and I love the mixture of magic and realism.

When this book came up for review, I was so excited to read it. I loved the cover and the title so much. It looked like something that I was going to be an instant favorite in my magical realism category.

Xanthe and her mother Flora leave London behind for a fresh start, taking over an antique shop in the historic town of Marlborough. Xanthe has always had an affinity with some of the antiques she finds. When she touches them, she can sense something of the past they come from and the stories they hold. So when she has an intense connection to a beautiful silver chatelaine she has to know more.

It’s while she’s examining the chatelaine that she’s transported back to the seventeenth century. And shortly after, she’s confronted by a ghost who reveals that this is where the antique has its origins. The ghost tasks Xanthe with putting right the injustice in its story to save an innocent girl’s life, or else it’ll cost her Flora’s. Continue reading “Review: The Little Shop of Found Things (The Little Shop of Found Things #1) by Paula Brackston” →

Review: Echo Moon (Ghost Gifts #3) by Laura Spinella

~ The Lit Bitch ~ 3 Comments

This book appealed to me for a couple of reasons, but one in particular stood out above all the other general ‘pick me’ signs that I saw in the pitch. The thing that caught my eye was the twist between historical fiction and magical realism/paranormal.

This book is set during the Great War (hello my favorite era) but yet has paranormal characters and the combo between the two interested me.

They sound like two very conflicting different genres and the first thing that I thought was ‘this could go one of two ways—really bad or really good’. So I agreed to review this one.

Knowing that it was the third in the series, I was prepared to be a little lost in the story but I had seen that many readers said it could stand alone so I was hopeful that that was truly the case.  Continue reading “Review: Echo Moon (Ghost Gifts #3) by Laura Spinella” →

Review: A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (Emmeline Truelove #1) by Juliana Gray

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About three chapters into A STRANGE SCOTTISH SHORE, I knew that I needed to read the first book in this series.

For one, I thought it would help me figure out some of the little nuances in the book that I was missing, as well as the backstory for many of the characters and their relationships.

So confession….I put down A STRANGE SCOTTISH SHORE about five chapters in and started reading this one instead. I just felt like there were so many little things that I was missing and I felt like I was cheating myself by skipping the first book.

As the personal secretary of the recently departed Duke of Olympia—and a woman of good character—Miss Emmeline Rose Truelove never expected to be steaming through the Mediterranean on a luxuriously appointed yacht under the watchful and jovial eye of one Lord Silverton. But here they are, as improper as it is, on a quest to find the duke’s heir, whereabouts unknown. Continue reading “Review: A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (Emmeline Truelove #1) by Juliana Gray” →

Review: A Strange Scottish Shore (Emmeline Truelove #2) by Juliana Gray

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Sometimes you pick up a book in a series and immediately know you are going to love it. That’s what happened with this one.

Just the cover and title alone was enough to entice me to read this one and next thing I know, within a couple of pages, I already know I desperately need the first book in the series.

For a number of reasons though, not just because I liked Emmeline Truelove and wanted more, but mostly because I felt like I needed to know more about what was going on with the characters and the over all story.

Scotland, 1906. A mysterious object discovered inside an ancient castle calls Maximilian Haywood, the new Duke of Olympia, and his fellow researcher Emmeline Truelove, north to the remote Orkney Islands.

No stranger to the study of anachronisms in archeological digs, Haywood is nevertheless puzzled by the artifact: a suit of clothing, which, according to family legend, once belonged to a selkie who rose from the sea in ancient times and married the castle’s first laird. Continue reading “Review: A Strange Scottish Shore (Emmeline Truelove #2) by Juliana Gray” →